Black Jobs Matter

Mr. Kirsanow is a lawyer in Cleveland, OH who writes about civil rights, appellate courts and politics.

For African-American men, who are disproportionately likely to be low-skilled, the unemployment rate for the second quarter of 2016 was 9.1%. (Shutterstock)

Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, calls for “comprehensive immigration reform”--the polite term for amnesty and increased low-skilled immigration--will likely increase in stridency. If the current regime of effectively open borders persists, there is but one outcome for low-skilled American workers: disaster.

Proponents of comprehensive immigration reform assure the American people that their proposals will somehow help the economy. Yet these assurances obscure copious evidence that “comprehensive immigration reform” will wreak enormous damage to the employment prospects of American workers who have already seen their wages and employment rates plummet over the last eight years.

Indeed, it is no secret that the employment picture for low-skilled workers is abysmal. The economy has been stagnant for almost a decade. In August 2008, the month before the crash, the labor force participation rate was 66.1%. In August 2016, more than seven years after the recession officially ended in June 2009, the labor force participation rate was an appalling 62.8%. Even worse, among those without a high school diploma, the August labor force participation rate was 46.5%. For African-American men, who are disproportionately likely to be low-skilled, the unemployment rate for the second quarter of 2016 was 9.1%. And the labor force participation rate for African-Americans without a high school diploma? A stunningly low 37.5%.

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Any version of the comprehensive immigration reform proposals floating around Washington has the potential to make things even worse. The 2013 Gang of 8 bill would have granted amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants. It would have acted as a magnet for future illegal immigration and substantially increased the number of legal immigrants. It was conservatively estimated that the bill would result in 30–33 million additional immigrants over the next 10 years. Yet in Washington and many elite circles, it is unthinkable that any comprehensive immigration reform bill could take a meaningfully different shape than that proposed by the Gang of 8.

Unless radically changed, the comprehensive immigration reform proposals on offer are structured so that most of the immigrants will be low-skilled. These immigrants will compete with Americans in the low-skilled labor markets. The competition is most fierce in some of the industries in which blacks historically have been highly concentrated, such as, agriculture and service. Since the supply of low-skilled workers already exceeds the demand, the massive influx in low-skilled immigrants bodes ill for all such workers, but particularly black males. Evidence adduced before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights shows that immigration accounts for 40% of the 18-percentage-point decline in black employment rates over the last several decades--the bulk of the decline occurring among black males. That’s hundreds of thousands of blacks thrown out of work, hundreds of thousands who can’t support their families without taxpayer assistance.

The evidence adduced by the Commission shows that not only does illegal immigration depress the employment levels of low-skilled Americans, it drives down the wages for available jobs. For example, an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated that as a result of the growth of undocumented workers, the annual earnings of an actual documented worker in Georgia in 2007 were $960 lower than they were in 2000. In the leisure hospitality sectors of the economy, the wages were $1,520 lower.

A $960 annual decrease in wages may not seem like much to some members of Congress, but as President Obama observed when he signed the extension of the payroll tax cut in 2012, an extra $80 a month makes a big difference to many families. It means $80 more towards rent, groceries and the cost of gasoline. Besides, why should American workers suffer any decline in their wages because of illegal immigration?

Recent history shows that a grant of legal status to illegal immigrants results in a further influx of illegal immigrants who will crowd out low-skilled workers from the workforce. Contrary to the mythology promoted by some amnesty proponents, this isn’t because low-skill Americans--regardless of race--are unwilling to work; it’s because they’re unwilling to work at the cut-rate wages (and often substandard conditions) offered to illegal immigrants--a cohort highly unlikely to complain to the EEOC, OSHA or the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor. This inexorably increases the number of low-skill Americans depending upon the government for subsistence, swells the ranks of the unemployed and reduces the wages of those who do have a job.

Before the federal government grants legal status to illegal immigrants or increases the level of low-skilled immigration, serious deliberation must be given to the effect such a grant will have on the employment and earnings prospects of low-skilled Americans. History shows that granting such legal status is not without profound and substantial costs to American workers.

Does anyone in Washington care?

Mr. Kirsanow was also formerly a member of the National Labor Relations Board and Chair of the Center for New Black Leadership.